Lord Harmar-Nicholls

Conservative MP for Peterborough for 24 years who endured a record number of recounts at general elections

THE LORD HARMAR-NICHOLLS, who has died aged 87, was as Harmar Nicholls an outspoken but popular Conservative MP for Peterborough for a quarter of a century; more recently he had been an equally energetic and independent-minded member of the European Parliament for Greater Manchester South.

As an MP, his principal interests were housing, road safety and migration to the Dominions, but he was perhaps best known to the general public for his record in retaining his seat by hair's breadth majorities. He held the constituency through eight general elections, with four of those ending in recounts.

In 1966, after seven recounts, his majority was found to be three votes. Peterborough Trades Council called on him to resign and fight a by-election, but the defeated Labour candidate, Michael Ward, decided not to contest the result.

Then in February 1974, Nicholls endured four recounts before coming home by 22 votes. "It is a most uncomfortable way of making history," he commented at the time, "but I enjoy living dangerously." He was finally ousted by Ward in October the same year, losing by 1,848 votes.

He held a number of minor ministerial posts. After being elected to Parliament for Peterborough in 1950, he became Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Assistant Postmaster-General the next year. In 1955, he became Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, and from 1957 to 1960 held the same position at the Ministry of Works.

As a backbencher, Nicholls had first made his mark at the Party Conference in 1950, when he had called for the building of 300,000 houses a year, a target subsequently attained by Harold Macmillan's administration. He also supported small traders, and was in favour of migration from Britain to Canada, Australia and the other Dominions. Like many of his contemporaries, he favoured the death penalty, too, and called for its reinstatement in 1974 after an IRA bomb atrocity at the Tower of London killed one woman and left 41 people injured. More surprising, however, was his support the same year for a coalition government to tackle the high inflation which plagued the economy.

"Unions distrust the Tories, and managers and investors distrust socialism," he said. "The antidote to this distrust may well be a temporary truce at Westminster and at the hustings by the political parties." But the idea, almost his last contribution as an MP, found little favour.

He was born Harmar Nicholls on November 1 1912. His father, who became a publican, had originally been a miner, and so proud was the future Lord Harmar-Nicholls of his heritage that he subsequently incorporated a Davy Lamp into the crest on his coat of arms.

He was educated at Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall, and, a saturnine young man of forceful character and with a proper sense of his own importance, took an early interest in politics. In 1937, he became vice-chairman of the West Midland Federation of the Junior Imperial League. A year later, at 26, he was a member of Darlaston Urban District Council, in the Black Country; in 1949, he became its chairman.

After studying Law, he was called to the Bar by Middle Temple in 1941, but never practised, taking a job instead as a surveyor. On the outbreak of war, he trained as a sapper and later served as a lieutenant with the Royal Engineers in India and Burma.

His drive and bounce had already recommended him to Central Office and he was flown back especially from South-east Asia to contest Nelson and Colne in the general election of 1945, but was unsuccessful, as he was at the Preston by-election in 1946. Yet he made a good impression on the hustings. At Preston, he was heckled by one man who at the end of the meeting went up and shook his hand. "Tha's a reet good chap," he told Nicholls, "but tha's on the wrong side. Good luck."

In 1960, at the end of his ministerial career, he was made a baronet. At the time he was in America and was puzzled by the telegrams of congratulation which arrived. He did not discover the reason for them until he returned to England and read his newspaper clippings.

He was raised to the peerage, retaining his full name, as Lord Harmar-Nicholls in 1974. In the Lords, he continued to speak his mind and in 1989 led the Conservative rebellion against the Football Spectators Bill. When the whip was imposed in an effort to keep the recalcitrant peers in line, Nicholls pointed out that the measure only compelled attendance, not a vote in favour of the Government.

From 1979 to 1984, he was also an MEP, having been against joining the Common Market and in favour of a Free Atlantic Trade Area. On almost his first day at Strasbourg, he had the temerity to rebuke the Parliament's new president, Simone Veil, for arriving late for work after lunch.

Away from politics, he had extensive business interests. He was chairman of insurance companies, Nicholls and Hennessy Hotels, and Radio Luxembourg. He was also a great supporter of the provincial theatre and chairman of the Malvern Theatre Festival.

He married, in 1940, Dorothy Edwards. She survives him with their two daughters, the younger of whom, Sue Nicholls, plays Audrey Roberts in Coronation Street. There is no heir to the baronetcy.